This isn't tomorrow

It's today, and today is Friday. We've been busy and I haven't gotten to that report yet, but guess what? I think I'm going to try and get it done while I'm taking a little break from painting window frames. So, here goes...

Friday night (from this past weekend, that is) the conference started. We sang songs and then listened to a speaker. Then we sang some more and listened to another speaker. Sorry to make this sound quite drab, but that's pretty much the way it was (except for actually being drab). The first speaker I didn't know, but it was interesting listening to him all the same. The second speaker I did know and actually he just arrived back from working in Ireland. That night the main theme was "God and I".

Saturday's theme was "the World and I". It proved to be a very full day. Breakfast was at eight and the first session of the morning started at nine (this session was actually the only one for the morning). After the lunch that was provided we had the afternoon free until supper. We had a gym rented out from two till five and everyone who wanted to play Volleyball and futbal went there (sorry, no pictures because I forgot my camera [yikes!]). Having the afternoon off gave everybody a chance to spend time with friends as well as to get to know new people. This is actually one of the main reasons for these quarterly conferences; for youth to spend time with each other. It works out as a great way for people to stay in contact, and it also gives them a chance to learn together.

That evening after supper the evening session started. Most everything done the whole weekend was done in a (what we'd call) laid back fashion. I don't really know how to explain what it's like to be in a conference like this one, all I know is that my experiences so far with these types of meetings are that there is no real set way of how to do them. When it was the speakers turn he got up and spoke. And, as happened, if his son (who might be three) came up to him and tried to hang on his leg or speak to him while he was talking, nobody seemed to think it out of the ordinary. I guess that's one example of the kind of thing that makes these meetings unique (at least to me).

My duty, as we might call it, during the conference was mainly just to take some pictures and play the guitar. Before Friday, though, I had taken it under my belt to try and orginize all the sound equipment we had and then try to figure out how I could put it all together and come up with what we were going to need. It was an interesting endeavor, one which was partially worth my while (I found out what most definitely wouldn't work), but when it came to "show time" all my work seemed to fall apart (one time literally). We had about half a million cables (we're in the wireless age, aren't we?) and those, combined with all the other hog-pog of equipment, meant there were sure to be problems. Was I surprised then when things started going the way of hum and feedback? Well, truth be told, yes! I was really hoping that my effort would have amounted to something, which, like I said before, they did partially. We ended up with enough cables for the first time (even though some stopped working the first night [I had previously tested all of them!]), five microphones (wow!), monitors (yeeeha!), and a very (very) interesting soundboard/amplifier setup. For the most part everything worked so I'll just end my little paragraph with that positive note about the technical side of things.

Sunday morning went well. We held a normal church service as part of the morning session. The second service (this was the actual session) was on the theme of "the Church and I". The speaker pretty much just gave his testimony; I think it fit the theme quite well. And that was it. The conference was over.

That afternoon we passed out flyers about the Manna/family center and used as many of the young people to help us as would volunteer. We were able to pass out a bunch and since then we have had opportunities to do the same.

Now that it's the evening I'm finishing the post that I started this afternoon, I will have to postpone today's update until tomorrow. Hope you can wait.